1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a mobile paging telephone with a text (or character) message receiving capability and, particularly to, a system and a method applicable to such a telephone for automatically calling back a call back number associated with a caller transmitting one of predetermined text massages to the number in situations where a called party or a carrier of the telephone device can not call back immediately.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Various mobile paging telephones or mobile phones with a paging receiver have been proposed for far. One of such mobile paging telephones are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,559,862 (1996). With such a mobile paging telephone, a subscriber or a carrier of the telephone can receive a page message containing a call back number via a paging station from a caller. A predetermined operation by the subscriber will cause the call back number to be automatically dialed permitting him or her to communicate with the caller over the telephone. This enables the caller, who usually does not know the location of the subscriber or called party, to get in touch with him or her at any time the caller wants if he/she is in a situation where he/she can be on the phone in person at that time.
However, there may be cases where the called party can not call the caller back immediately. For example, the called party may be attending a conference, or talking on the phone over a matter which needs to be settled but which it takes some time to settle when he/she is paged. In these situations, the caller can not get any response, nor can he/she know whether the party to be called has been actually paged and got the page message.
Thus, a need exists in the art for a mobile paging telephone capable of automatically calling back a call back number associated with a caller transmitting one of predetermined text massages to the call back number. This enable the called party to inform the caller of the reception of the page message and rough information a situation of the called party. However, the call back operation may not be achieved successfully, which is the case for example when the called party is outside of the cellular telephone service area and/or when the paging station serving the mobile paging telephone is busy (these situations are hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9crouting failure situationsxe2x80x9d).
A further need exists in the art for a mobile paging telephone which repeats call back operations till both of the routing failure situations is settled.
These and other needs are met by a system and a method used in a mobile paging telephone for automatically transmitting one of prepared response messages which is specified by the user to a call back number associated with the caller in accordance with the present invention. The present invention is applicable to any device provided with a text (or character) message receiving function and a mobile or cellular telephone. A user of the system can prepare a data structure in which a caller ID of each prospective caller is associated with information on the caller and caller""s communication device in which he receives a call. It is assumed that the call back number includes a telephone number, a mobile phone number, a pager number, etc. If the system receives a page message from a caller, the system displays the prepared response messages when the user is too busy to call back, in response to the user or subscriber operating a predetermined control switch and prompts the user to select one of the displayed response messages. Selecting a response message causes a call back message to be compiled from a call back number associated with a caller ID contained in the page message and the selected response message. For this purpose, the system has a table which, for each of prospective callers, contains a record comprising a caller ID and a name of the prospective caller, and a call number and a type of his or her information device which the caller wants a call to be directed. The call back message is transmitted to the call back number. The compilation of call back message is performed such that the format of call back message is adapted to the type of the caller""s device associated with the caller ID in the table. A paged time (i.e., a time when the paging call has been received from the caller) and/or the called party""s name may be included in the call back message. This ensures the caller to receive a call back message including such information.
If the transmission of call back message is to be done in a situation where the mobile phone is busy, a situation where a paging station serving the mobile phone is busy and/or a situation where the mobile phone is located out of a service area, then the transmission operation is repeatedly attempted at a preset time interval till all of the situations are resolved.